This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Part of the reason progressives don't seem to win with this argument in practice is that it depends on assumptions that prove dubious in practice: that only the richest of the rich will suffer (when social democracies as we know them today tax more across the board) or that taxing to create such broad benefits is costless.
Yes, UBI avoids the problem of means-tested systems that still end up giving disproportionate money to dubious cases. But it does so by simply ducking the problem of the bill that makes them want to discriminate in the first place.
Maybe because leftists share the impulse that you categorized as conservative? That if the government is going to take a lot of your money out of your hands it should be some sort of emergency or going to a case so self-evidently worse off that it justifies the effort and isn't either a gain at the margins or an active loss to people seemingly incapable of making good use of it.
That isn't it solely - some seem deeply skeptical of UBI as a suggested welfare replacement, presumably because they're skeptical that you'll get a high enough UBI for unfortunates - but worth considering.
I actually think it's better without the concession to fuzziness. After all, what your UBI proposal has going for it here is that we theoretically know what everyone is going to get and so the spending is predictable. If we start adding new expectations you risk ending up with the very problem of throwing good money after bad to raise some people to a standard they seem incapable of in addition to the big bill.
More options
Context Copy link